February 20, 2009

Polo Season is OVER

I arrive at water polo, twenty or so minutes late. I don’t mind so much- any time I spent out of the pool is good time.I slip through the changing room and out onto the deck. So far so good. I slip onto the side of the pool, where girls bags have already lined up, their contents overflowing with school clothes and towels and the like. Oh no, Coach has noticed me.

Coach: “Dude, why are you so late?”

Dude? I have a name.

Me:

I shrug my shoulders and get in the pool. It is cold, cold, cold and it feels like Siberia is licking us. I mentioned this once to the other girls and they said, “Where’s Siberia?”

Me: “It’s a provinence in Russia. It’s to the North and really cold.”

Them: “We didn’t study Russia in geography.”

Me: “Oh.”

Coach has us lined up for egg-beater, side-popping and speed-beating. Who comes up with these dumb names anyway? Someone on the varsity yells for us to get into two lines. Whatever. It’ll be that way for a 25, maybe a 50, and then it’s back to state-of-nature, absolute anarchy thank you very much. Coach begins to drivil.

Coach: “We rank 13th in CIF, and with this attitude you are showing me, giggling and fooling around, maybe I should call them and say that we should be ranked 16th blah blah blah when I played polo blah blah blah when my girls join this team blah blah blah mustangs otay we are a community and we play on a five-year plan blah blah blah. “

The last phases make me snap out of my trance and consider. Five-year plan? We are a community? Automatically I associate them with, well,communism. What else am I supposed to do?

I could mention this to Coach, but he would probably lecture me that communism is wrong this is a team there is no I in team why are you always late why can you name off Soviet leaders but you still can’t understand what –insert generic water polo phrase here- means.

I could mention this to the other girls, but either A) they wouldn’t understand it. B) they would ignore me, or C) Alex would turn with that stupid smirk on her fat face and start whispering. I stay silent, imagining Coach as a secret leader of a socialist water polo group. Coach Chris would be his top KGB-esq guard.Ha Ha.

We stop, and Coach tells us, the Junior-Varsity-but-not-good-enough-for-CIF-don’t-want-to-ruin-our-chances-of-winning to go over to the other side of the pool and do a base swim. Swimming. Bliss. Bliss for me like Alex listening to Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange. No one telling you what to do, and we don’t even have a time to swim on.Perfect.

Coach: Alright, you do a 200 IM swim, that’s fifty butterfly fifty backstroke fifty breaststroke fifty freestyle. After that, you do 20 fifties your choice. After that, get out, dry off, and wait for practice to end with us.

Wait for practice to end? Oh no no no no no. I have history homework and I don’t particulary want to be here.

I conjugate Japanese verbs into their te forms as I swim. Nomu is nonde, kaeru is karette, and so on and so forth. It gives me time to think, to ponder, and to enjoy being alone and not having someone pestering you at every moment.

I wonder what Coach would do if his daughters told him that they wanted to do something other then water polo or water sports in general. What is his youngest told him that she wasn’t going to join polo and instead was going to run track? I think Coach might just pop a vein. I wonder how many clipboards he would throw.

Finished! I look at the clock. Only 4? I despair. That’s it- I’m getting out anyway and going home. I’m going home NOW.

I get out and begin to walk towards the door. The others girls have gotten polo balls and have started throwing them. No big lost. Polo season ends today. I am walking past the lifeguard stand, past the ramp, and it’s not so cold.

Alex: “Ewwwwww.”

I don’t know if that is directed towards me or not. Whatever. I employ the “lolita” method and pretend to be very interested in reading a text on my phone. I am almost at the door, when,

Alex: “ Hey! I am sorry. I didn’t mean that! You can come pass with us if you want.”

Sorry Alex, but I can see through fake kindness.

Me: “No.”

I can hear them as I call my mother.

Marilyn: “Why do you treat her like that?”

I don’t hear the reply.

Marilyn: “She’s really nice, you know.”

I don’t hear the reply.

I brush my hair in the bathroom. I then occurs to me that this is a very Carrie-like scene. One girl brushing her hair out, alone.

I leave. I lie to my mother and tell her that we got out early. She asks where the other girls are. I tell her they are changing in the locker room.

I am thankful water polo is over.

But I want to know why my blog has over 40 views for the one post that I made on Valentine’s Day. It is the one where I ask Cesar if he would be my Valentine.

Is it him visiting? I will drop a hint tommorow and state that my blog suddently has 40 views.

Cesar, I really like you! I don’t like Drake at all in that way!

And this is just another example of my cowardly self. Why can’t I say this to Cesar in person, instead of posting it on an obscure blog where the chance of him reading it is less then zero?